


in the forest

by sakuranohiraishin



Category: Keyakizaka46 (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, F/F, Human/Vampire Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:34:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22071106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sakuranohiraishin/pseuds/sakuranohiraishin
Summary: It is night; a night just like every other.Moriya Akane sits at the window of her bedroom and looks out into the snowy darkess.It is a night just like every single other of the countless nights that Akane has spent in this very room, staring into the darkness- but something is different this time.Akane did not expect the voice of a young child calling out to her.
Relationships: Moriya Akane/Sugai Yuuka
Kudos: 19





	in the forest

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write something short to see how typing on my new laptop would feel like, and it turned into this XD
> 
> I'm actually pretty satisfied with the way this turned out, especially because I used a writing style that's different from how I usually write (though the end of the story feels kind of weird to me), so please tell me what you think about the story!
> 
> And also, happy new year to everyone!

It is night.

Moriya Akane sits at the window of her bedroom and looks out into the snowy darkness, completely silent. After all, who is there to talk to? Akane lives alone in a small house in the woods near a village that has so few residents that all of them know each other.

They know that Akane exists, too, but they banned her from the village once they realized what she is (which did not take them very long).

They are scared of her, justifiably so. Akane has killed quite a few of them when she still lived in the village. With nowhere else to go, they dragged Akane into the forest one cold winter night and hoped that she would not survive the cold.

But Akane is immune to the cold, more or less. She feels it, but it cannot kill her. So she survived, and she found a small abandoned house in the woods; the house that she now lives in.

Sometimes, Akane feels lonely. She liked the village, she still does, but the villagers fear her, so Akane has never returned there ever since she was banned.

(It has been more than sixty years since that night. Akane looks like she has not aged by a single day, and in the village they tell stories of the fearsome, cruel vampire that lives in the forest. Most of those stories are not true.)

In this particular night, Akane feels  _ very _ lonely. She knows she could just go back to the village (and kill one or two of the villagers; that would be her first real meal after sixty years of making do with the blood of the animals in the forest), but she knows that that kind of thing can never go well.

But this night is different from all of Akane’s other lonely nights.

Someone knocks at the door of her small house.

Akane stays where she is, not reacting to this sound that she has not heard in many years. Maybe she just imagined it because of her loneliness. Or maybe someone got lost in the woods, because she knows none of the villagers would come to her voluntarily.

And then, a small voice cries out, and Akane can only hear it because as a vampire, her senses are sharper than those of a human.

“I-is anyone here? It’s so cold, please let me in…”

Akane finds herself getting up and walking to the front door even though she was hesitating only moments ago. The voice sounds like that of a child, and even the fearsome vampire Moriya Akane cannot let a child freeze to death.

When Akane opens the door, a child stands in front of her, just like she expected.

The girl has dark brown hair that falls down to her shoulders, and her whole body is shaking from the cold. She looks up at Akane with wide eyes, and when she leans her head back to do so, a small pile of snow slips off her head and falls to the ground behind her. “H-hello, miss,” the girl stammers, her voice trembling just as much as her body does. “I’m s-sorry for interrupting… w-whatever you’re doing, but can I please come i-inside and warm up a bit?”

Akane steps aside in silence, making way for the girl to come into her house. She gestures at the fireplace in the small living/dining area and the girl scurries over there, nearly crawling into the flames in an attempt to warm herself up.

The girl looks like she is no older than eight or nine years. Akane closes the door and looks at the girl’s back for a few seconds before she steps into her small kitchen and puts a pot filled with water onto the stove to heat it up. “What are you doing here?” she asks the girl while she is rummaging through her cupboard to find the box of tea that she has bought a few years ago. That is all she has, so the girl will have to accept it, and besides, the girl will never know that the tea is already a few years old if Akane doesn’t tell her.

“I- the others said this was a good way to prove my courage,” the girl mumbled, holding her hands a little closer to the fire and wincing when she holds them a little  _ too _ close to the flames. “They always say I was a scaredy-cat, so I wanted to show them that I can be brave, too.”

Akane sighs. Because the water is not quite boiling yet, she steps back into the living area and picks up the fluffy blanket that she once bought, not because she needs it, but because she likes how it feels on her skin. “Here,” she says, wrapping the blanket around the girl’s still-trembling body. “Don’t do this again, ever. Running into the forest during a storm isn’t a very smart thing to do. You could have died if you hadn’t found this place.”

The girl turns her head and looks at Akane seriously. “Actually…” she starts, looking a little embarrassed. “They say a vampire lives here. So I thought everyone would see that I’m brave if I bring back something… like a few hairs from the vampire or something.”

For a moment, Akane remains silent. Then she puts on a tiny smile. “Forget about it, midget. There’s no way a kid like you could ever steal some of the vampire’s hair.”

“So the vampire exists?”

Akane nods, smiling mysteriously. She could just kill the girl and drink her blood, but she has always avoided killing children even when she lived in the village, so she doesn’t do it. “She does. She’s beautiful, but scary.”

Excited, the girl practically hangs on Akane’s every word, the cold seemingly forgotten. “So she’s a woman? Have you met her before?”

“Shh, you’re asking too many questions.” Akane lets out a small chuckle. She returns to the kitchen and checks on the water; it is boiling now, so she fills some of it into a mug and puts the tea bag inside. “Anyways, the forest is far too dangerous for an eight-year-old to—”

“ _ Nine _ ,” the girl empathizes, the blanket slipping off her shoulders as she holds up nine fingers. “I’m nine, miss.”

“—for a  _ nine _ -year-old to walk around in such a storm,” Akane finishes her sentence, correcting herself along the way. “What’s your name, anyways?”

“Yukka,” the girl proudly says, and Akane feels like that might be a nickname rather than an actual name. “And my daddy is the mayor!”

A small groan leaves Akane’s lips; “great,” she mumbles to herself before kneeling next to the girl. “Here, take this, but be careful with it.” She puts the mug with the hot tea into ‘Yukka’s’ hands and carefully wraps the blanket around her again. “Listen to me, Yukka. I don’t want to see you in this forest ever again.”

“Eh, why not? You’re nice, so what if I wanna visit you again?” Yukka asks, surprised.

“Well, you  _ will _ not meet me again,” Akane insists, her voice a little sharper now. Somehow, she doesn’t want to be mean to Yukka, but she doesn’t have a choice. It is dangerous for a child to get close to her, especially if that child is the mayor’s daughter. “You may spend the night here because of the storm, but you will go home tomorrow, and you will forget about me.”

Yukka pouts, seeming genuinely disappointed. “But I like it here. It’s a nice place, and I need to find the vampire so I can—”

“You will  _ not _ meet the vampire,” Akane interrupts her, her voice even sharper. After all, the girl has already met the vampire (though she does not know that), and Akane does not want her running through the forest anymore. “You will now drink your tea while it’s still warm, then you will go to bed, and tomorrow, you will return to the village without telling anyone about me, do you understand?”

“Yes…” Yukka mumbles, lifting her mug to take a sip from the tea. She whimpers when it burns her tongue at first, but she quickly gets used to it and drinks all of the tea eagerly. Her hands are already much warmer than before when Akane takes the mug from her.

“Good.” Akane takes the mug back to the kitchen and then helps Yukka to get up and walk over to the sofa.

The nine-year-old stumbles after her, her exhaustion catching up with her now that she can finally relax. She lies on the sofa and looks up at Akane, seemingly wanting to say something, but Akane puts her finger over her lips, and so Yukka remains quiet.

Akane waits until Yukka is asleep, which is luckily not a very long time. Then, she picks up the small girl, still wrapped in the blanket, and takes her back to the village, leaving her in what seems to be a young girl’s room in the mayor’s house. (The window is open, presumably from Yukka sneaking out earlier that night, which makes it all the more easier for Akane to put the girl into her bed.)

Akane rips out a thin strand of her hair, ties it around a twig from the tree in front of the window, and leaves the twig in Yukka’s hand. Then, the vampire returns to her house in the woods.

❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️

_ In the next morning, nine-year-old Sugai Yuuka awakes early. She feels like something is amiss, but she cannot pinpoint what exactly it is. Then, Yuuka realizes that she is wrapped in a blanket that is not her own, nor one that belongs to her parents. She also realizes that her left hand is clenched to a fist around a small twig from a tree. _

_ When she takes a closer look at it, Yuuka finds a strand of light-brown hair tied to it. _

Light-brown hair.

_ It must belong to someone Yuuka knows, but she cannot remember who it belongs to. Weirdly enough, she remembers freezing in the forest, sitting at a warm fire, and drinking hot tea from a weirdly-shaped mug, but all of those memories are so vague that Yuuka wonders if they were just a dream, for she cannot even remember the face of the kind person who made her tea. _

_ The only thing that proves that those things must really have happened is the blanket around Yuuka’s body, and the twig in her hand. But when Yuuka asks her parents about the kind person who lives all alone in the woods later, they say that the only humanoid creature that lives in the woods is the cruel, fearsome vampire. _

_ So Yuuka hides the blanket in her cupboard before her parents can find it, and she keeps the twig with the light-brown hairs in a small box in one of the drawers of her dresser. _

_ At the end of the day, Sugai Yuuka has forgotten that she has ever met the woman named Moriya Akane, the kind woman in the woods whose name she was never told. Yuuka does not return to the woods anytime soon because she remembers being very strictly told that the forest in winter is not the right place for a nine-year-old girl to be. _

❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️

Five years have passed since Akane’s encounter with ‘Yukka,’ the nine-year-old girl who knocked at her door in a stormy winter night. In the next few nights after that encounter, Akane almost waited for Yukka to show up at her door again, but that never happened.

Not even once during the following five years did Yukka show up at Akane’s door, and Akane did not go to the village to check on her either.

_ She’s just a little human child, _ is what Akane told herself when she realized that she was actually a little worried about Yukka.  _ She has her human parents, and she shouldn’t get involved with a vampire. _

Now, it is the summer of the sixth year after Akane and Yukka’s meeting, and Akane rarely thinks of Yukka anymore. She figures that, since Yukka has most probably forgotten all about her, it would be best to forget about the human child as well.

And she manages well so far, while hunting small animals to quench her thirst for blood and staying away from the village. Only once or twice a year does Akane allow herself to kill a traveller who got lost in the woods, because human blood always tastes better and makes her feel more satisfied than animal blood.

But then, in the summer of the sixth year, Akane is outside in the forest, her teeth sunken into the fur of a small mouse as she drinks its blood, when she hears a voice calling out.

“Hello? Is anyone here? Hello?”

Thinking that it might be a traveller who got lost, Akane drops the mouse and slowly approaches the voice; she has not gotten her annual drink of human blood yet, and she  _ wants _ it. But then, the voice says something that Akane did not expect to hear from a random traveller.

“Hello, uh… kind woman who took care of me a few years ago?”

Akane stops in her tracks, accidentally stepping on a brittle tree branch and making it break.

❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️

_ Nearby, fifteen-year-old Sugai Yuuka spins on her heels when she hears the sound of a branch breaking. She doesn’t even know if this is really the person she dreamed of five years ago; for all she knows, there could be some sort of wild animal reacting to her voice, wanting to kill her now. _

_ Now that she realizes that, another realization hits Yuuka: She does not know if the woman is even still here. She does not even know if the woman really exists. Everything might have been a dream, from nine-year-old her leaving the house to prove that she can be brave, over the woman letting her into her house, to the firm voice warning her not to come back into the forest during winter. It might have been her friends who took her back to the village, maybe the blanket belonged to one of them. _

_ But still, Yuuka wants to find out if the woman really exists. The blanket smells peculiar, like something Yuuka has not smelled in the village before. The hair from the twig that she found in her hand back then is a color that none of her friends’ hair has. _

_ “Are you here? Was that you?” Yuuka calls out again, hoping that if the woman is there, she will know that Yuuka is talking to her. “I… I’m here to return your blanket, so please come out and let me talk to you.” _

_ And then, Yuuka spins on her heels once again when she hears steps approaching her. _

❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️

Akane steps out from behind a tree, sighing. “I believe I told you not to come back,” she says, her hand coming up to wipe away a tiny droplet of blood.

Yuuka sees that movement, but she does not realize that Akane is trying to hide what she just did. “You’re really here!” she exclaimed, relieved. “I’m so glad you’re here, miss. I’m glad you’re…”

“ _ Real _ ?” Akane asks, a small smirk on her lips. “What did you think I was?”

“I… don’t know. A dream? I couldn’t remember anything clearly,” Yuuka shrugs helplessly. Now that she has met the woman, she does not quite know what to say.

“You said you were here to return my blanket,” Akane helps her along, letting out another quiet sigh. “So give it back, go back to the village, and forget about —”

“No!” Yuuka exclaims immediately; she refuses to even let Akane finish that sentence. Part of her believes that she forgot about Akane because Akane told her to forget, so Yuuka does not want that to happen again. “I’m not forgetting about you again.”

Akane frowns. “You’ve become more defiant,” she states, a hint of irritation in her voice.

Against her will (because this is a serious situation), Yuuka has to chuckle. “Well, I became older after all,” she replies. “But… you’re still the same, miss.” Her voice is calm, as if she accepts that fact without even questioning it.

And maybe she does; the stories of the vampire have been a part of Yuuka’s whole life until now, so she knows that supernatural creatures exist. Except, she does not expect Akane to be the fearsome vampire she has been told to stay away from.

“Well, I don’t age after all,” Akane retorts, using similar words to those Yuuka just said, but her voice is far more serious.

They remain silent for a while. It feels like an eternity to Akane, but then Yuuka holds out the blanket, and Akane accepts it with a sigh. “Come, then,” she says and starts to lead the way to her small house.

Yuuka follows her, seeming satisfied. “But if you didn’t want me to remember you,” she starts as she lowers her head to evade a low-hanging branch, “then why did you leave me the blanket and a strand of your hair?”

“Well, you were still cold, so I needed the blanket to keep you warm,” Akane replies. She does not look back at Yuuka, but there is a barely visible smile on her lips. “And you said you came into the forest to prove your courage, so I thought I’d give you some of my hair so you could tell everyone that you found the vampire.”

Surprised, Yuuka stops in her tracks for a moment. “Did I?” she asks and then clarifies, “Did I find the vampire? Are you…?”

Akane remains silent. She neither confirms, nor denies Yuuka’s suspicion. “Well, at least you waited until summer to come back here,” she then remarks, changing the topic.

Yuuka nods. “The forest in winter is not the right place for a girl like me,” she explains. “It was scary back then, when I was nine, you know? I’m not the bravest girl in the village, so I opted for a safer time to come here.” She receives a nod of approval from Akane, and it makes her smile.

“That was a good decision. Does anyone know that you’re here?” Akane opens the door to her house and Yuuka follows her inside, shaking her head.

“I said I wanted to collect berries in the woods, alone.” Following the gesture Akane makes with her hand, Yuuka sits on the sofa. “By the way… I’ve been calling you ‘miss’ all this time, but you have an actual name, right?”

“It’s Akane.” Akane sits next to Yuuka, taking a closer look at the girl. “And your name is not actually ‘Yukka,’ I suppose?”

Yuuka blushes and averts her eyes, embarrassed. “That's my nickname… because my name is Yuuka.”

“It’s a nice name.”

They sit together in silence for a while. It feels comfortable for both of them, as if something has been missing in their lives so far, but that thing is there now. Akane no longer feels lonely, and Yuuka has found the woman from her dream.

But their time together passes as they talk about various things, and eventually the sun starts to set.

“You should go home,” Akane decides when she realizes that the sky is starting to turn red. “It’s getting late, your family must be getting worried.”

Yuuka looks genuinely sad. “But I’d rather stay here.” She has only been with Akane for half a day, and she has not even received any confirmation for her assumption about Akane being the vampire (though, the longer she talks with Akane, the more convinced she is that her assumption is right).

“You can’t. You have a life and a family outside of the forest, so you need to go back there and for—”

Yuuka looks at Akane with a decisive expression on her face. “Don’t say it. I’ll actually forget again if you say it like that, right? Just like what happened when I was nine… because… you can use some kind of magic, am I right?”

Akane sighs heavily and rubs her forehead. “Fine. You can keep your memory, then. But you’d better never tell anyone that you met me.”

“Why not? Why don’t you live in the village with all of us?”

“I’ll tell you another time.”

Even though Akane has said that, she avoids talking about that topic the next few times she meets Yuuka. During the summer, Yuuka visits her at least twice a month, but when winter approaches, Akane very intently tells Yuuka to stay in the village where she is safe.

They secretly meet each other like that for a few more years, and then, it is Yuuka’s nineteenth birthday. She sneaks out of the village before everyone else wakes up, and she stands in front of Akane’s house in the early morning. “Akane! You promised to celebrate my birthday with me this year, right?”

_ She seems excited _ , Akane thinks to herself with a smile. Lately, she has been enjoying Yuuka’s visits even more than before, and she is starting to think that she might be developing feelings for the girl. Akane shakes her head slightly and opens the door to let Yuuka in. “Happy birthday,” she greets the girl, and because it is a special day, she even hugs Yuuka (which is something she has never done before).

Yuuka leans into the touch and hums happily. She feels like she has gained Akane’s approval in some way, because the vampire is finally actively showing her affection. “Thank you, Akane. Can I get a present from you?”

“Eh? Of course—”

Before Akane can even finish her sentence, Yuuka leans in and kisses her.

Surprised, Akane lets her go ahead, and she only speaks up when Yuuka pulls back. “That is what you wanted? A kiss…?”

Yuuka blushes and nods slowly. “Yes… you know, I feel like I belong here rather than in the village. I wish I could just stay here with you.”

“You can’t.” Akane wants to say that she feels the same way, but she knows that Yuuka has to go back to the village. “You’re human, you belong there.”

Yuuka shakes her head. “I belong with you.” She is right, much more so than she knows. Because Akane has already chosen her as the person she wants to protect and love.

Akane sighs, and then she gives in to Yuuka and kisses her again because at this point, she cannot resist her anymore.

❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️

_ Despite everything, Akane asks Yuuka to go back to the village that evening. Yuuka looks unhappy when she leaves, but she promises to come back and kisses Akane on the lips before she leaves. _

_ The moment Yuuka steps back into the village, her parents come running at her in worry. _

_ “Where were you?!” her father, the mayor, yells. _

_ “We were so worried!” her mother whines, pulling Yuuka into a tight embrace. “Happy birthday, dear.” _

_ “Thank you, mum,” Yuuka mumbles, and then she speaks up. “I want to move out.” _

_ The mayor looks at her in shock. “ _ What _? What are you talking about? Where do you even want to move?” _

_ Yuuka clears her throat. “Out of the village. Into the forest.” _

_ Her mother gasps in shock, and she might be exaggerating, but at the same time, she might also be  _ that _ shocked. “Yuuka! Into the forest?! But that’s dangerous!” _

_ “I have a friend there. A person I trust. They will keep me safe,” Yuuka says, and from the look her parents share, she can tell that they know that she means Akane. _

_ The vampire. _

_ “You will not move in with the vampire,” her father growls, seeming angry now rather than worried. “The vampire will kill you.” _

_ “If she does, at least I’ll die for the person I love,” Yuuka blurts out, but at the same time she realizes that she seriously has no idea if Akane will actually kill her. _

_ Her parents stare at her, seeming enraged. “Don’t say something like that, Yuuka—!” _

_ Yuuka hesitated for a moment, not sure what to do. But then she knows that she wants, that she  _ needs  _ to get back to Akane, because she fears that her father will send someone to kill Akane now. _

❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️

When Yuuka returns to her on that same evening, Akane knows that something is wrong. “Is something wrong?” she asks her newfound girlfriend, and Yuuka nods rapidly.

“I’m worried,” she quickly says, hugging Akane tightly. “I told my parents that I want to move out, but I’m worried that they’ll try to hurt you now…”

“Shh,” Akane rubs Yuuka’s back calmingly. “It’s going to be fine. I’ve lived here for centuries, they won’t be able to hurt either of us. It’ll be alright.”

Yuuka nods, burying her face in Akane’s shoulder. Akane smells like the blanket that she gave Yuuka all those years ago (or probably the blanket smelled like Akane), and Yuuka loves her smell.

“So, if you want to move away,” Akane starts to muse, her hand still rubbing Yuuka’s back. “How about this: we could leave this place and travel. Travel to the places you want to see. And if we find a nice place, we can find a new home there.”

Yuuka nods eagerly. She loves the idea of traveling the world with her lover, just as much as she loves Akane’s smell. “That sounds great. But…”

“But?”

“...I’m going to grow old, and then you won’t want me anymore because you’ll still be young and pretty, and then I’ll die all alone,” Yuuka quietly voices her fears. It is too early for her to be thinking about death, but she realized that this kind of thing is going to happen when she thought about how Akane and her future might look.

Akane leans in and kisses Yuuka’s temple. “I can turn you,” she says softly. “Into a vampire. If you want. Then you can be with me forever. But even if you become old and ugly, I’ll still love you, so don’t worry about that.”

Yuuka’s eyes widen. “You can do that?” she asks, a little surprised. “You can turn me… you can make me become like you?”

Akane nods, a weak smile on her lips. “It’ll hurt, probably. And I’ll only do it if you really want it.”

But Yuuka nods eagerly, the hope of getting to spend the future with Akane drowning out the thought of the pain that might come with her transformation.

So Akane brushes Yuuka’s dark brown hair off her neck, gently guides the girl to tilt her head to the side, and sinks her teeth deeply into Yuuka’s neck.

Yuuka screams in pain, but at the same time, she can only feel happiness—because now, she will be like Akane, and Akane will no longer be lonely.


End file.
